


St. Raphael

by keraunoscopia



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 10:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12456124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keraunoscopia/pseuds/keraunoscopia
Summary: Sonny never wanted to admit to the team that his confirmation name is Raphael, after the archangel, but Theresa shows up in the station one day, pissed to high hell and shouting his name, so he can't exactly deny it.





	St. Raphael

Sonny had always been a good, god fearing man. Some of his first memories were in the wooden pews of St. Mary Margaret’s Roman Catholic Church, getting a smack on the back of his head from his mother for bickering with his sisters. He started Sunday School when he was only four years old, and as much as his sisters teased him about it, Sonny took it seriously. He paid attention in his classes, said his Our Fathers and Hail Marys before bed, and read his bible passages every morning. And he tried to make sure he didn’t sin too much, even if his sisters were really annoying. 

He was so excited for his first communion that he didn’t stop talking about it for months before hand. Theresa and Gina were already allowed to receive communion every Sunday, and he had to cross his arms across his chest for a blessing. The night before, he laid out his suit and his clip-on tie, and made sure to polish his black shoes the way is dad had showed him. He woke up before the sun even began to crest the horizon. He didn’t want to have to fight his sisters for the only bathroom, so he showered until he was squeaky clean, and rubbed some of his father’s aftershave on his cheeks. He spent twenty minutes trying to get his blond waves to lay flat with a comb. 

He was dressed and ready and sitting at the kitchen table in his suit and tie, a cloth napkin tucked into his collar just to make sure he didn’t spill anything on it as he ate his bowl of cereal and waited for the rest of the usually bustling house to wake. After it was over, Sonny returned to his family, chest puffed and beaming. They had taken him out to brunch, and even let him get two cannoli with his meal. 

Most of the kids in his grade stopped going to church as often, and his Sunday School class got smaller and smaller every year, but Sonny was unwavering in his devotion. He was thrilled when Father Mancuso picked him to be an alter by, and he had everything committed to memory before the first time he got to serve. 

Sonny had never really been the most popular kid at school, but he was the golden boy of St. Mary Margaret’s. He volunteered at all of the potlucks and fundraisers, the smiling, excitable errand boy. The older women adored him and his eagerness- so few kids his age demonstrated such commitment to service and god, not even his sisters. Nothing could shake his faith, even as he approached fourteen and his confirmation class was a fourth of the size of first communion. 

In the months leading up, Sonny really bucked down on his studies, and was never seen without his bible in hand, both Latin and English translations. He penciled notes into the margins, and underlined and highlighted what caught his attention, or what he had questions about. He was always full of questions. The ladies at church made comments amongst themselves, about how he was sure to go on to seminary school, and how incredible his faith was, how much of a shame it was that he likely wouldn’t marry and have a family. 

The one thing that caught him up was selecting a confirmation name, and with it, a patron saint to be his guide. And as much as Sonny felt connected and committed to God, he had never felt particularly connected to the saints. 

As cheesy as it sounded, Sonny’s saint came to him in a dream, only a few weeks before his confirmation. 

* * * 

The team had probably never even thought about the fact that Sonny had a confirmation name. Most seemed to forget that Dominick was his first name, instead of Sonny, and they chose Carisi over that anyway. 

So then, it really was a surprise when Theresa had stormed into the station after finding out that Sonny had run a background check on her newest boyfriend- out of concern of course, the guy seemed like a creep when Sonny had met him. 

“DOMINICK SALVATORE RAPHAEL CARISI JUNIOR,” she screeched as she crossed the bullpen, giving him a shove as soon as her hands made contact with his chest, “How dare you!” 

Everyone in the room did a double take. If the screeching hadn’t been enough to catch everyone’s attention, Sonny’s full name certainly was. Sonny just sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to calm his older sister down. He was never going to be able to live this down. 

* * * 

“Your middle name is Raphael?” Barba asked with a smirk, a single malt scotch in his hand as he looked over at the Italian detective. 

“No, my middle name is Salvatore,” Sonny replied, gesturing to the bartender for another beer. He knew exactly what Barba meant but Sonny wasn’t exactly about to make it easy for him. 

“That’s not what your sister said earlier,” Barba replied, smirk unwavering. 

“Salvatore’s my middle name,” Sonny repeated, his hand moving to his chest where the St. Raphael medal hung under the collar of his shirt, “Raphael is my confirmation name,” he finally relented. 

Barba’s grin grew impossibly wider. “So that means you picked it.” Not a question, just a statement, ripe with self satisfaction.

Sonny paused for a moment in careful consideration. “I think more so it picked me.” His mind was swirling with the things he wanted but didn’t want to say. 

“How’s that?” Barba asked with his brows furrowed, taking another sip of his scotch. If Sonny didn’t know better, he’d have thought Barba was the literal embodiment of the cat that ate the canary, but he knew that he couldn’t leave the question hanging, couldn’t let Barba’s mind fill in the gaps with his wild imagination. 

Sonny ducked his head, “I was fourteen, it was only a few weeks before my confirmation and one of my classmates- my friend,” he paused, just long enough for Barba to gather that it wasn’t going to be a funny story. “She and her family were killed in an accident, hit by a drunk driver. It was my first experience with death, ya’know? I hadn’t even lost a pet before that, and I sort of blamed myself, because they were on their way home from my house, had picked Connie up because I convinced her to come to my house after school. You can’t help but think like that when you’re a kid, weight of the world on your shoulders, you know? I doubted God when I found out, I think it was the only time I can ever remember thinking ‘how could there be a god when something like this could happen,’” He shrugged his shoulders, “Anyway, about a week after the accident, the night before the funeral, I had a dream that the archangel Raphael appeared before me with Connie,” it had happened so long ago, Sonny wasn’t sure why he was getting so choked up. He had never shared the story with anyone before. 

“She told me that it wasn’t my fault, that I shouldn’t lose faith. I just always felt like St. Raphael was watching over me after that, so it seemed like an easy pick for my confirmation name…” he trailed off, and the silence between them persisted for a little too long for comfort. Barba wasn’t sure what to say to that, but before he could find the right words, Sonny continued.

“I know it sounds crazy, but when I was nineteen I saw him again, I was in Chelsea with a friend, trying to sneak into a club. These guys came out of nowhere, calling us fags and threatening to kill us. My friend got away, he was always faster than me, but I wasn’t fast enough. I thought for sure that was going to be it, but I saw St. Raphael right before I passed out, and he told me he’d take care of me. I woke up hours later in the hospital with only some bruises and a concussion. Apparently a patrol car drove by right as I passed out.”

Sonny had torn the label of the beer bottle off completely, flakes of paper scattered across the bar in front of him, and his hands had run out of something to do. Might as well let it all out, nothing left to lose, he figured. 

“I was held up at gun point my second week as a patrol cop, dumb rookie mistake,” he added, “St. Raphael appeared before me then too, said it wasn’t my time yet. And it wasn’t, because my partner got the guy to drop the gun.” He bit his lip. 

“When I transferred to Manhattan SVU, I was standing in the station, and you walked in with a file in your hand and this pissed off look on your face, and I swear, hand to God, I thought St. Raphael was appearing before me again, because you look exactly the same as him, even in that dream when I was fourteen. But then you were you, and I thought it had to be a sign from god.” 

What ever Sonny meant to say, it was lost as Rafael reached across the space between them, the chasm that had been left uncharted for far too long, and pulled Sonny into a searing kiss. 

And Sonny couldn’t help but think that maybe it really had been a sign from God.


End file.
